Sunday, December 21, 2014

I Am Loved

4th Sunday of Advent
December 21, 2014
Luke 1:46b-55; Luke 1:26-38

For almost 50 years now the jewelry store, Helzberg Diamonds, has had the same slogan, “I Am Loved.”  This by itself is remarkable in this day and age when every company seems to need to have a new soundbite every year, if not even more frequently change up their marketing campaign to attract the public to their company.  “I Am Loved” came about in 1967 when the third generation president of the jeweler, Barnett Helzberg, Jr., proposed marriage to a young lady named Shirley Bush.[1]  Barnett was so excited that she accepted his proposal that he wanted to tell the world about how loved he was.  He drew up a design and started it first as a lapel pin that simply said, “I Am Loved.”  Helzberg quickly ran out of pins as it became not just a national trend, but even international when “I Am Loved” pins were sent to soldiers overseas serving in the Vietnam War.  For Christmas of 1967, Helzberg offered to send a pin to any soldier free of charge.  This phrase is still found at Helzberg’s today, and it is the message I want you to know and hear and feel this morning: you are loved.  I am loved.  Say it with me: “I am loved.”  Whether you feel loved or not, I want you to know that you are loved. 
Our Gospel story this morning begins with the angel telling Mary that she is loved.  And a good thing the angel began there, because how else would Mary take the news that she was about to become an unwed pregnant teenager whose fiancĂ©e would probably leave her when he found out?  It’s a good thing the angel began by essentially saying, “Mary, God loves you”!  His actual words translate as: “Rejoice!  Peace be with you!  The Lord is with you!  You are favored!”[2]  The sentiment is: “You are loved!”  Mary is confused by this greeting, and understandably so.  It’s kind of an odd way to say “hi.”  The angel continues, “Don’t be afraid, Mary.  God is honoring you.  God has been gracious to you.”[3]  The angel continues to remind Mary that she is loved, and that’s good, because Mary will need those reminders in the months ahead.  We’re condensing the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy to just a few days, reading about its beginning now, and Wednesday, when we’ll read about Jesus’ birth, but in the tough times in between, Mary will probably frequently recall the angel’s words.  Joseph does, in fact, want to divorce her after he finds out she’s pregnant.  And then in the last trimester of pregnancy she has to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to be counted in the census.  Mary may be pregnant with Jesus, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy pregnancy or that everything falls into place perfectly after this.  Jesus is, after all, born in a stable.  Mary needs this reminder, this extraordinary event of an angel coming to see her, as a firm reassurance that she is loved. 
Soon after this conversation with the angel, Mary goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth.  And then we have the reading that we read responsively this morning, what our hymnal calls the “Canticle of Mary,” or more often called the Magnificat, the first word of the poem in Latin.  For centuries of church history the Bible was only read in Latin, and where in English we say, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” in Latin it’s “Magnificat anima mea Dominum.”  Each Scripture passage was known by the first word, which in this case is “magnificat.”  The Magnificat, the Canticle of Mary, is Mary’s way of saying “I am loved.”  It’s Mary taking on and accepting what the angel told her and putting it in her own words, in the form of a song. 
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. 
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.”[4]
This is Mary’s version of Helzberg’s lapel pin: “I am loved.”  God loves me.  He has looked with favor on me.  He has done great things for me.  He has compassion on his people.  He has come to the help of his servant.  God loves me.  I am loved.  And with that statement you can feel that Mary is calm and at peace.  “I am the Lord’s servant.  Let it be with me just as you have said.”[5]  The knowledge that I am loved brings about a certain peace, a certain calmness.  The knowledge that I am loved enables us to face whatever may come our way.  It enables us to quit worrying, to quit struggling, to just be content and rest in God’s love.  “There must have been times when Mary was frightened, worried, fearful, and sad. She may not have felt very peaceful as she considered her future. Yet her words help us see the peace that comes when we trust in God.”[6]  She knew God loved her.  She knew she could trust him.  And being able to say “I am loved” gave her peace. 
How do we say “I am loved”?  How do you put it in your own words?  What do you say or what event do you remember that is a reminder to you of God’s steadfast love for you?  What gives you peace when you’re feeling anxious and stressed?  Perhaps it’s a scripture verse, such as the one where Jesus says, “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.”[7]  Or a particular event in your own life where you know for certain God was present and promised to never leave you.  Maybe there is a particular item, something you were given perhaps, that reminds you of God’s love for you and to trust him even in the face of troubling circumstances.  Or perhaps singing a hymn like “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” or “How Great Thou Art” is your favorite way of saying “I am loved.” 
One of the commentaries I read for today suggested that perhaps having a personal relationship with God “is simply to feel less afraid and more secure. Maybe it is to trust and to be filled with a sense of great calm and to be able to find enormous strength in the face of that which we might otherwise have feared.”[8]  The assurance that you are loved gives you a certain quiet strength and calmness, that otherwise might not make sense.  However, Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians that God’s peace is far beyond understanding.[9]  It is being calm at a time when it would be perfectly normal and understandable to not be calm. 
We as a people are hungry for hope and love and peace and we look for it as much during the holiday season as at any other time, as things seem to pick up the pace and there’s the stress of finding the perfect gift and being the perfect host and the pressure of being around family we’re not always around very often.  I pray that as you prepare for Christmas your hope is indeed renewed, that you have the reassuring knowledge that you are loved, and that you may know that peace that passes understanding.  If you’re having trouble finding it, I suggest you come tomorrow night for our Longest Night service.  Today marks the beginning of the Winter Solstice and the darkest day of the year.  The service tomorrow recognizes that while many are ready to sing “Joy to the World” in a few days, there are others of us who are hurting, whether from loss, or longtime suffering, or for whatever reason just not excited to celebrate.  It’s a gathering in the evening, as darkness comes, to worship God in the midst of mourning. We gather to shed tears if they come, to hold hands if they are available, and to join our voices with one another and our forebears in the faith who still cry out, “How long?”  I encourage you to join us, to find healing in the midst of pain, light in the midst of darkness.  Come as you are.  And I pray that you know this season that you are loved.  I love you.  More importantly, God loves you.  Please know you are loved. 

Monday, December 15, 2014

Advice for Teenagers of All Ages



3rd Sunday of Advent
December 14, 2014
Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

“Comfort, comfort my people! says your God.  Speak compassionately to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her compulsory service has ended, that her penalty has been paid… A voice is crying out: ‘Clear the Lord’s way in the desert!’”[1]  What a beautiful opening from the prophet Isaiah.  “Comfort, comfort my people!  Speak compassionately to her, and proclaim to her that her penalty has been paid.”  What penalty?  Exile.  Why?  Because God’s people broke the covenant with God.  The people of Israel failed to uphold their side of the covenant by putting other things before God, by not fully trusting God, by turning a blind eye to injustice and oppression, and by not taking care of those in need in their community.  The consequence of their sin was exile to Babylon.  However, it was not exile for exile’s sake, but a pruning, or stripping away.  Pruning is when you cut the plant back so that new and better growth can appear.  This was God stripping away everything that was getting in the way of Israel’s relationship with God.  What’s getting in your way of a right relationship with God?  What’s getting in our church’s way?  Israel was exiled and suffered greatly because they messed up.  So have we.  I think there have been enough divisions and conflicts and unresolved arguments and harsh criticisms that we have also suffered greatly and been pruned.  And pruning hurts, it’s cutting something that’s living.  I think we have also been in exile.  Our Advent candle hymn says “O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here.”  We have been lonely, we have been mourning, we have been held captive, and we are waiting to be ransomed.  Well, today’s Scripture is that word: “Tell my people they have suffered long enough and their sins are now forgiven.”[2]  The penalty has been paid.  Our season of pruning is over.  It is time for new growth.  A voice is crying out: ‘Clear the Lord’s way in the desert!’”  Or, in the old King James, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord!”  Prepare the Lord’s way, here in White Marsh [Middle River]!  Here in this church, clear the way for the Lord!  It is time to move forward.  Our sins are forgiven, the penalty has been paid in every way except monetary, it is time clear the way.  It is time to move on.  How do we do that?  By following advice you might give to a teenager. 
First, you gotta clean up.  It is time to move out the clutter, clean out the closets, both the ones here at the church and the ones in your brain.  Let bygones be bygones, or to quote the latest wildly popular Disney movie, “Let it go!”  It’s time to move on.  Let’s clean out the remnants of projects that didn’t work.  Let’s let go of feelings of resentment and grudges.  Someone’s not here anymore?  Let’s move on without them.  No one is irreplaceable.  Everyone has a role to play and someone else can fill that role.  The learning curve may be steep, but someone else can do it.  There isn’t room for new growth if all the old junk is taking up all the room.  There isn’t room for joy and peace if you’re holding on to bitterness and daily recounting the list of how you’ve been offended.  There isn’t room for Jesus if we’re too full of complaining and things that drain life and reminders of how life didn’t turn out how we had wished.  It’s time to clear out the clutter.  Keep the things that are good and life-giving and useful.  Let go of all the other junk.  There’s no space for new things if you’re holding on tightly to old things. 
It’s like where Jesus talks about new and old wineskins.  The first thing he says is that you don’t “sew a piece of new, unshrunk cloth on old clothes; [that way,] the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and makes a worse tear. And no one pours new wine into old leather wineskins; otherwise, the wine would burst the wineskins and the wine would be lost and the wineskins destroyed. But new wine is for new wineskins.”[3]  God is ready to do a new thing in this place, but we have to throw out the old wineskins first.  There is no room for anything new, no room for growth, no room for anyone else, if we’re holding on to those old wineskins.  We have to let them go.  We have to clean up to get ready to receive new guests. 
Second, we have to apologize and forgive.  This is where John the Baptist’s message comes in today.  John the Baptist called for people to repent, to turn away from their sins, and “to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins.”[4]  Moving on and cleaning up doesn’t mean ignoring what happened.  Cleaning up a mess often involves an apology and forgiveness.  Forgiving someone who wronged you, so that you can move on.  Forgiving yourself for something you did, or didn’t do and should have done.  Apologizing to those to whom you did not treat with love and grace.  This is repentance: changed hearts and lives.  We’ve all done and said things we shouldn’t have done and we can all remember someone whose words have hurt us.  Beloved, it’s time to let it go.  If you need to apologize to someone, it’s time to do that.  If you need to forgive someone, it’s time to do that.  It’s time to let go of resentment and hurt and instead of a cold shoulder, to offer forgiveness.  It’s hard, I know.  It’s much easier to nurse our feelings of bitterness than to have to talk with someone we don’t want to talk with and do the hard work of forgiveness and creating a healthy relationship.  Changed hearts and lives.  It’s the only way anything is ever going to change and it’s the only way to make way for new growth. 
Finally, the last piece of advice for a teenager of any age is to keep it clean.  This requires a change, because obviously what we did before caused the mess, so we can’t do what we did before.  A different translation of our psalm this morning says, “Don’t let them return to foolish ways.”[5]  Foolishness is how we got into the mess we had to clean up.  Foolishness is what got us into trouble.  Foolishness is what caused us to have to be pruned, to be sent into exile, to be punished for our sins, to get us ready to try again.  Another version of the psalm says, “I am listening to what the Lord God is saying; he promises peace to us, his own people, if we do not go back to our foolish ways.”[6]  Sin is how we got to the state we’re in – conflict, argument, driving people away, division, not offering love and grace to one another, but the penalty has been paid.  The pruning has been done.  It is time for new growth.  But we can’t return to how things were before, regardless of whether you think they were “the good old days” or not.  Now is not then.  Now calls for something different, a different behavior, a different way of being in the world, changed hearts and lives.  Our Epistle lesson from 2 Peter says that we must live holy and godly lives, dedicated to God.  It’s time to move forward.  It’s time to keep it clean.  That means more communication, it means less criticism and murmuring, it means more working together.  We’re all on the same side. 
Have we learned anything as a result of our pruning?  Have we learned anything as a result of our suffering in exile?  Are we ready to return to a life of faithfulness and obedience?  Are we ready to love one another as Christ loves us?  It will mean some hard conversations as we clean up.  It will mean discerning what the next step is that God has for us as a church.  We have been pruned.  We’ve been mourning in lonely exile.  It is time to extend the hand of forgiveness and reconciliation.  It’s time to apologize for our part in creating the mess.  And it’s time to come home.  God is always waiting, with open arms, watching for us to turn around from the middle of our messes and come to him.  He’s waiting for us to make room for him in our hearts, to clear out the grudges and resentments, to clear his way in the desert, to clear his way in White Marsh [Middle River], to clear his way so that others can see him as well. 
“Comfort, comfort my people!  Speak compassionately to her, and proclaim to her that her penalty has been paid.”  Exile is over.  The time of pruning is over.  It’s time for new growth.  Are you ready for it? 


[1] Isaiah 40:1-3, CEB
[2] Isaiah 40:2 (GNB)
[3] Mark 2:21-22 (CEB)
[4] Mark 1:4 (CEB)
[5] Psalm 85:8 (CEB)
[6] Ibid, GNB